The Fanged Crown

Начало книги

With his face squashed between a boot heel and the deck of his ship, Harp could see scores of grain seeds that had fallen into the tiny spaces between the planks. And it made him angry. In addition to being laid out under a filthy boot, there was evidence of what a negligent caretaker Harp had been. After a decade of humiliations, looking at the seeds germinating in his beloved ship made Harp wonder if he could sink any lower. Grabbing at the man’s calf, he tried to push the boot off his face, but the foot didn’t budge. The boot had a wooden heel, and as “Bootman” ground it into Harp’s cheekbone, the pain was excruciating.

As he heard the sound of a man unsheathing his short sword above him, Harp had an image of the broken hull of his ship battered in the shallows with a field of wheat sprouting from her boards.

Four years before, Harp and his friends had broken just about everything-their code, their pride, their backs-trying to get their hands on the Crane, a one-mast, rat-infested galley with warped planks and a heroic history, at least according to the fat man at the docks who owned her. The Crane would be their passage out of the dingy waterfront district where they had lived.

Читать дальше →